Archive for April 2016

Some nights they’d bang out the metal cannister of rolled-
up screen and cart out the magically upright projector case
with the hinged clasps, and play, after many gasps
of exasperation,
home movies.

Time seemed to tick with remorseful determination
on the rebound, tsk-tsking as the film
unwound, chittering
in reverse,

and always at the tail of what should have been
a family movie (meaning including me),
my brother, stepped awkwardly
towards us, with a twist of crepe paper
at his fist, in a circle of kids that conspicuously did not hold
his little sister.

How it blistered–my brother who didn’t even like
crepe paper,
my brother who walked
when he should
have danced,
my brother whose smirk seemed almost a smile
in the camera’s swerve,
as Mayday caught his crewcut
in its sun’s bristling
smile.

How strange that in the changes
of age, I now would happily give my brother
all the May dances
in the world
(having felt
the fall–)

and give him too
so many other mays: may
you be happy. May
you be free. May
all beings be happy
and free–

and how is it, that honestly.
I don’t think enough of all
these mays
nor of all
my true brothers

in this world
of hinged rewind,
clasped metal.

************************************

Final poem for this April 2016, for Magaly Guerrero’s prompt on Real Toads to write of maypoles.

I want to thank again Kerry O’ Connor and all the prompters and poets at Real Toads who have made this such a sustaining month for me. And all readers and commenters! Thanks so very much.

I look out at my parents’ patio, pained
by the presence of
the absence of
my dad, the gaps
in his smile when aged, glints
of gold filling.

I don’t see him especially
in the “new” cushions (now old
no matter how saved when not in use) and in
the even older cushions now used mainly
by geckos–
where he once lifted thinning limbs
in time to a music that was also old then,
beloved tunes I have to work to catch
in a flash in the brain pan, glints
of gold
filling–

*********************************Very drafty Instapoetry for Bjorn Rudberg’s prompt on With Real Toads to write a poem what one sees out a window in less than 100 words. I am visiting Florida right now, so wrote of that.

This poem is also some consecutive number for April, National Poetry Month. Photo is mine and basis of poem. I am quite worn out at the moment, and may be late returning comments.

I thank all for their support and inspiration in this month of poetry.

In a far car whirring
past corn,
we played a game of what breed of dog
we’d be if dog-born,
what flower, what tree–so hard
when what you knew you were
was not what you preferred;
easier to name an uncle as German Shepherd,
an aunt as violet.

***************************

Draft poem for Mama Zen’s prompt on Real Toads to write about who you truly are in 50 words or less. This is (I’m guessing) probably my 30th poem for April, as I think I was a couple ahead. A recycled drawing (of mine) , of typing with lap-pup (Pearl!)

He played as if the keys were hair that had been brushed
a hundred times a day many hundreds
of days–this is not to say that the piano sounded like hair but like
much care, silk spun
into flow, flow woven
into bell, as if he rode
a length of knell–one knew he must have learned
to ride it
in the way that a stream might learn to swell
and then subside, as if he’d studied the teachings of glisten
and undertow–

Earlier in the day when I thought of practice, I thought of how you’d hardly had to work
at pretending I didn’t exist,
how quickly you perfected my nought, how
when you seemed to see through me, I even for some while
ceased to be–

And then there are words
like cantabile–
their sound paralleling
their significance–

Time is a word
like that–with both long I and silent
me–

What I mean to say is that there is always beauty
somewhere, working diligently
to come to our attention, as
we in turn strive to pay attention–
or, the opposite–
as we don’t strive
to pay anything,
as we simply listen for the hard-earned that’s learned
to be given,
as we practice listening
with all
our hearts.

*******************************

Yes, it’s weird. But it’s late in the day and late in the April game here! Draft poem for Real Toads for a super interesting prompt by Rommy about tea ceremony. Here I am thinking about an aspect mentioned by Rommy about much practice making for the best cuppa (and focusing on the idea of practice rather than tea.)

Cantabile is originally an Italian word, used in musical notation to mean singingly (often as a direction to a pianist to play singingly or sweetly.) Pronounced (sort of) can-tah-bi-lay.

I will be traveling Thursday but hope to get to reading other poets soon.

There was a sloped curb,
concrete not stone,
that was my home.
Its lines were not blue
like the lines on a page,
but straight enough
in the warp of curb world.

It gathered in its grooves and on
its lap, the wilt of cherry blossom,
and, in fall, the slug
of leaf pelt.

It held the backs of my legs,
when lonely, and the slap
of bare feet, when charged,
and when it rained, a small barge
of blossom or leaf might float
in its shallow, lit by the light
that breaks through low-
slung clouds,
like that light that shines
from the planes of stained cheeks
or the angles of bangs
pushed back– It was that
kind of place.

*************************

draft poem for some day in April, for the Real Toads prompt by the wonderful Susie Clevenger to write of where one comes from. I’m probably late returning comments; will do so soon. Pic is by Diana Barco from my book of poems, Going on Somewhere (though this a new poem written for the prompt.)